‘Scranton Joe’ Biden picks Delaware over Pa. for his presidential library
Former President Joe Biden has chosen to build his Presidential Library in Delaware, where he jumpstarted his political career and served as U.S. senator for 36 years.
It looks like Pennsylvania is not getting its first presidential library anytime soon.
Former President Joe Biden, who was born in Scranton, Pa. and has ties to the University of Pennsylvania, has instead chosen his home state of Delaware to cement his presidential legacy.
The decision has ended a monthslong mystery as to where the 46th president will have his library. The National Archives and Records Administration, which manages the presidential library system, has had custody of records and archives from the Biden administration since Jan. 20, the last day Biden, a Democrat, was in office.
Biden has strong ties to Pennsylvania, having spent the first 10 years of his life in Scranton before his family moved to Claymont, Delaware. Biden has also served as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the Ivy League has named the “Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement” after him.
He’s even called Pennsylvania “home” and referred to himself as “Pennsylvania’s third Senator.” During his presidential campaigns, he often emphasized his connections to the Keystone State.
But even so, Biden chose Delaware, the state he represented in the U.S. Senate for 36 years.
Biden attended the University of Delaware and began his political career there with his election to the New Castle County Council in 1970 before moving to federal office.
During his presidency Biden regularly spent weekends at his family home in Wilmington and vacationed in Rehoboth Beach.
The exact location and opening date for Biden’s library has yet to be announced, but the Joe and Jill Biden Foundation approved a 13-person governance board of friends, political allies, and former aides that will help guide the project, The Associated Press reported.
There’s yet to be a price tag on Biden’s, but the costs of creating presidential libraries has skyrocketed over the decades. For instance, the George H.W. Bush library’s construction cost was approximately $43 million when it opened in 1997. Former President Bill Clinton’s was about $165 million.
For former President George W. Bush’s library, his team met its $500 million fundraising goal before the site in Texas was dedicated. And The Obama Foundation has outlined a $1.6 billion fundraising goal for the construction of former President Barack Obama’s presidential center set to open next year in Chicago.
The development of the Biden presidential library will show how willing donors are to write the former president a check amid ongoing divisions within the Democratic Party after President Donald Trump’s victory in November over former Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the nominee after Biden stepped down from the ticket.
Biden aides have met with officials operating 12 of the 13 presidential libraries with physical locations, managed by the National Archives.
James Buchanan, the only other president born in Pennsylvania, does not have a presidential library because the tradition did not begin until the 20th Century.
Trump, for his first term in office, currently has a digital library run by the National Archives. He has not yet chosen a physical location.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.